Researchers from Cambridge map Oxford's medieval murders

Researchers behind the University of Cambridge’s Medieval Murder Map estimate the murder rate in late medieval Oxford to have been the equivalent of around 60-75 per 100,000. The equivalent rate for the modern-day Thames Valley is around 0.7.

In the late 14th century, the city was one of Europe’s most important centres of learning, home to around 7,000 people including 1,500 students. 

And analysis of 700-year-old coroners’ records suggests it was a fairly bloody place to live.

Prof Manuel Eisner, director of the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology, said: “A medieval university city such as Oxford had a deadly mix of conditions. 

“Oxford students were all male and typically aged between 14 and 21, the peak for violence and risk-taking.

“These were young men freed from tight controls of family, parish or guild, and thrust into an environment full of weapons, with ample access to alehouses and sex workers.”

The Cambridge Murder Map allows you to search for murders in the late Middle Ages Picture: Cambridge University (Image: Oxford Murder Map/Cambridge University)

He told the university's Cam Stories website: “As well as clashes between town and gown, many students belonged to regional fraternities called ‘nations’, an additional source of conflict within the student body.”

True crime history buffs can see for themselves Oxford’s murderous medieval past.

A new interactive map, put together by the Cambridge researchers, gives people the chance to see where, when and why their medieval forbears were murdered in the city.

Axes, an arrow for an eye and interrupted prayers

The stories in the map reveal an easy recourse to violence by students, townspeople and ‘strangers’ alike.

A brawl at a High Street tavern on a Thursday night in September 1298 ended in the death of Irish clerk John Burel.

When an argument spilled out of the drinking den, Burel drew his sword before charging at two other clerks.

One tried to parry his blows with his own sword, slicing Burel across the forehead.

His companion, a John de Suthfolk, swung a battle-axe towards Burel in an attempt to defend his friend – leaving the Irish clerk with six inch wound to his head.

The previous year, 1298, clerk David of Northampton, was said to have been saying his prayers as he walked outside his home on what is now Ship Street. Another man, John Laurence, shoulder barged him repeatedly.

Ship Street borders the course of the old city wall Picture: Ed Nix

“David asked him to leave him in peace and so returned to his lodging,” the coroner recorded.

Not content with that, John banged on the front door.

The man whose prayers had been interrupted emerged from the house armed with a staff and rained down blows on his head, shoulders and back.

John died 15 days later, although not before both men were locked up by the Chancellor of the University’s official.

The turn of the century failed to stem the violence, the stories recorded in the map suggest.

In 1344, four years before the Black Death struck, another scholar was hit in the eye with an arrow shot by student Hugh Mymmes.

The bowman fled, ‘wither is not known’, the coroner’s record said. Mymmes was a mainpast, or servant, of the Abbot of Osney Abbey.

A conjectured study by H.W. Brewer in 1891 of Osney Abbey as it would have looked three centuries before
Women were also among the victims. Sex worker Margery de Hereford was murdered in 1299 by a scholar who stabbed her to death rather than pay what he owed. He was never brought to justice.

Even officials responsible for maintaining law and order were not safe. On a summer night in 1324, preserver of the ‘King’s Peace’ Richard Overhe was beaten and stabbed by four students. He was found dead in his home.

Prof Eisner said: “Circumstances that frequently led to violence will be familiar to us today, such as young men with group affiliations pursuing sex and alcohol during periods of leisure on the weekends.

“Weapons were never far away, and male honour had to be protected.”

But he added: “Life in medieval urban centres could be rough, but it was by no means lawless. The community understood their rights and used the law when conflicts emerged.

“Each case provides a glimpse of the dynamics that created a burst of violence on a street in England some seven centuries ago.”